Subtitles and Transcript

Taryn Simon

0:11
Okay, so90 percent of my photographic processis, in fact, not photographic.It involves a campaign of letter writing,research and phone callsto access my subjects,which can range from Hamas leaders in Gazato a hibernating black bear in its cavein West Virginia.And oddly, the most notableletter of rejection I ever receivedcame from Walt Disney World,a seemingly innocuous site.

0:43
And it read -- I'm just going to read a key sentence:"Especially during these violent times,I personally believethat the magical spell cast upon guests who visit our theme parksis particularly important to protectand helps to provide them with an important fantasythey can escape to."

1:02
Photography threatens fantasy.They didn't want to let my camera inbecause it confronts constructed realities, myths and beliefs,and provides what appears to beevidence of a truth.But there are multiple truths attached to every image,depending on the creator's intention, the viewerand the context in which it is presented.

1:26
Over a five year period following September 11th,when the American media and government were seekinghidden and unknown sitesbeyond its borders,most notably weapons of mass destruction,I chose to look inward at that which was integralto America's foundation,mythology and daily functioning.I wanted to confront the boundaries of the citizen,self-imposed and real,and confront the divide between privilegedand public access to knowledge.

1:57
It was a critical moment in American historyand global historywhere one felt they didn't have access to accurate information.And I wanted to see the center with my own eyes,but what I came away with is a photograph.And it's just another place from which to observe,and the understanding thatthere are no absolute, all-knowing insiders.And the outsider can never really reach the core.

2:24
I'm going to run through some of the photographs in this series.It's titled, "An American Indexof the Hidden and Unfamiliar,"and it's comprised of nearly 70 images.In this context I'll just show you a few.This is a nuclear waste storage and encapsulation facilityat Hanford site in Washington State,where there are over 1,900stainless steel capsules containing nuclear wastesubmerged in water.A human standing in front of an unprotected capsule would die instantly.And I found one section amongst all of thesethat actually resembled the outlineof the United States of America,which you can see here.

3:03
And a big part of the work that issort of absent in this context is text.So I create these two poles.Every image is accompanied with a very detailed factual text.And what I'm most interested inis the invisible space between a textand its accompanying image,and how the image is transformed by the textand the text by the image.So, at best, the image is meant to float awayinto abstraction and multiple truths and fantasy.And then the text functions as this cruel anchorthat kind of nails it to the ground.But in this context I'm just going to readan abridged version of those texts.

3:43
This is a cryopreservation unit,and it holds the bodies of the wife and motherof cryonics pioneer Robert Ettinger,who hoped to be awoken one day to extended lifein good health, with advancements in science and technology,all for the cost of 35 thousand dollars, for forever.

4:02
This is a 21-year-old Palestinian womanundergoing hymenoplasty.Hymenoplasty is a surgical procedure which restores the virginal state,allowing her to adhere to certain cultural expectationsregarding virginity and marriage.So it essentially reconstructs a ruptured hymen,allowing her to bleed upon having sexual intercourse,to simulate the loss of virginity.

4:27
This is a jury simulation deliberation room,and you can see beyond that two-way mirrorjury advisers standing in a room behind the mirror.And they observe deliberationsafter mock trial proceedingsso that they can better advise their clients how to adjust their trial strategyto have the outcome that they're hoping for.This process costs 60,000 dollars.

4:52
This is a U.S. Customs and Border Protection room,a contraband room, at John F. Kennedy International Airport.On that table you can see 48 hours' worthof seized goods from passengers entering in to the United States.There is a pig's head and African cane rats.And part of my photographic workis I'm not just documenting what's there.I do take certain liberties and intervene.And in this I really wanted it to resemblean early still-life painting,so I spent some time with the smells and items.

5:27
This is the exhibited art on the walls of the CIAin Langley, Virginia, their original headquarters building.And the CIA has had a long historywith both covert and public cultural diplomacy efforts.And it's speculated that some of their interest in the artswas designed to counter Soviet communismand promote what it considered to be pro-Americanthoughts and aesthetics.And one of the art forms that elicited the interest of the agency,and had thus come under question, is abstract expressionism.

5:59
This is the Forensic Anthropology Research Facility,and on a six acre plotthere are approximately 75 cadavers at any given timethat are being studied by forensic anthropologistsand researchers who are interested in monitoringa rate of corpse decomposition.And in this particular photograph the body of a young boyhas been used to reenact a crime scene.

6:25
This is the only federally funded sitewhere it is legal to cultivate cannabisfor scientific research in the United States.It's a research crop marijuana grow room.

6:36
And part of the work that I hope foris that there is a sort of disorienting entropywhere you can't find any discernible formula in how these things --they sort of awkwardly jump from government to scienceto religion to security --and you can't completely understandhow information is being distributed.

6:58
These are transatlantic submarine communication cablesthat travel across the floor of the Atlantic Ocean,connecting North America to Europe.They carry over 60 million simultaneous voice conversations,and in a lot of the government and technology sitesthere was just this very apparent vulnerability.This one is almost humorous because it feels like I couldjust snip all of that conversation in one easy cut.But stuff did feel like it could have been taken30 or 40 years ago, like it was locked in the Cold War eraand hadn't necessarily progressed.

7:32
This is a Braille edition of Playboy magazine.(Laughter)And this is ... a division of the Library of Congressproduces a free national library servicefor the blind and visually impaired,and the publications they choose to publishare based on reader popularity.And Playboy is always in the top few.(Laughter)But you'd be surprised, they don't do the photographs. It's just the text.(Laughter)

7:59
This is an avian quarantine facilitywhere all imported birds coming into Americaare required to undergo a 30-day quarantine,where they are tested for diseasesincluding Exotic Newcastle Diseaseand Avian Influenza.This film showsthe testing of a new explosive fill on a warhead.And the Air Armament Centerat Eglin Air Force Base in Floridais responsible for the deployment and testingof all air-delivered weaponrycoming from the United States.And the film was shot on 72 millimeter, government-issue film.And that red dot is a marking on the government-issue film.

8:43
All living white tigers in North Americaare the result of selective inbreeding --that would be mother to son,father to daughter, sister to brother --to allow for the genetic conditionsthat create a salable white tiger.Meaning white fur, ice blue eyes, a pink nose.And the majority of these white tigersare not born in a salable stateand are killed at birth.It's a very violent process that is little known.And the white tiger is obviously celebrated in several forms of entertainment.Kenny was born. He actually made it to adulthood.He has since passed away,but was mentally retardedand suffers from severe bone abnormalities.

9:27
This, on a lighter note, is atGeorge Lucas' personal archive.This is the Death Star.And it's shown here in its true orientation.In the context of "Star Wars: Return of the Jedi,"its mirror image is presented.They flip the negative.And you can see the photoetched brass detailing,and the painted acrylic facade.In the context of the film,this is a deep-space battle station of the Galactic Empire,capable of annihilating planets and civilizations,and in reality it measures about four feet by two feet.(Laughter)

10:04
This is at Fort Campbell in Kentucky.It's a Military Operations on Urbanized Terrain site.Essentially they've simulated a cityfor urban combat,and this is one of the structures that exists in that city.It's called the World Church of God.It's supposed to be a generic site of worship.And after I took this photograph,they constructed a wall around the World Church of Godto mimic the set-up of mosques in Afghanistan or Iraq.And I worked with Mehta Viharwho creates virtual simulations for the armyfor tactical practice.And we put that wall around the World Church of God,and also used the characters and vehicles and explosionsthat are offered in the video games for the army.And I put them into my photograph.

10:53
This is live HIV virusat Harvard Medical School, who is working with the U.S. Governmentto develop sterilizing immunity.

11:01
And Alhurra is a U.S. Government- sponsoredArabic language television networkthat distributes news and information to over 22 countries in the Arab world.It runs 24 hours a day, commercial free.However, it's illegal to broadcast Alhurra within the United States.And in 2004, they developed a channel called Alhurra Iraq,which specifically deals with events occurring in Iraqand is broadcast to Iraq.

11:29
Now I'm going to move on to another project I did.It's titled "The Innocents."And for the men in these photographs,photography had been used to create a fantasy.Contradicting its function as evidence of a truth,in these instances it furthered the fabrication of a lie.I traveled across the United Statesphotographing men and women who had been wrongfully convictedof crimes they did not commit, violent crimes.

11:55
I investigate photography's ability to blur truth and fiction,and its influence on memory,which can lead to severe, even lethal consequences.For the men in these photographs,the primary cause of their wrongful convictionwas mistaken identification.A victim or eyewitness identifiesa suspected perpetratorthrough law enforcement's use of images.But through exposure to composite sketches,Polaroids, mug shots and line-ups,eyewitness testimony can change.

12:26
I'll give you an example from a case.A woman was raped and presented with a series of photographsfrom which to identify her attacker.She saw some similarities in one of the photographs,but couldn't quite make a positive identification.Days later, she is presented with another photo arrayof all new photographs,except that one photograph that she had some draw tofrom the earlier array is repeated in the second array.And a positive identification is madebecause the photograph replaced the memory,if there ever was an actual memory.

13:15
Frederick Daye, who is photographed at his alibi location,where 13 witnesses placed him at the time of the crime.He was convicted by an all-white juryof rape, kidnapping and vehicle theft.And he served 10 years of a life sentence.Now DNA exonerated Frederickand it also implicated another manwho was serving time in prison.But the victim refused to press chargesbecause she claimed that law enforcementhad permanently altered her memory through the use of Frederick's photograph.

13:46
Charles Fain was convicted of kidnapping, rape and murderof a young girl walking to school.He served 18 years of a death sentence.I photographed him at the scene of the crimeat the Snake River in Idaho.And I photographed all of the wrongfully convictedat sites that came to particular significancein the history of their wrongful conviction.The scene of arrest, the scene of misidentification,the alibi location.And here, the scene of the crime, it's this placeto which he's never been, but changed his life forever.So photographing there, I was hoping to highlightthe tenuous relationship between truth and fiction,in both his life and in photography.

14:30
Calvin Washington was convicted of capital murder.He served 13 years of a life sentence in Waco, Texas.

14:38
Larry Mayes, I photographed at the scene of arrest,where he hid between two mattresses in Gary, Indiana,in this very room to hide from the police.He ended up serving 18 and a half yearsof an 80 year sentence for rape and robbery.The victim failed to identify Larryin two live lineupsand then made a positive identification, days later,from a photo array.

15:02
Larry Youngblood served eight years of a 10 and half year sentencein Arizona for the abduction and repeated sodomizingof a 10 year old boy at a carnival.He is photographed at his alibi location.

15:16
Ron Williamson. Ron was convicted of the rape and murderof a barmaid at a club,and served 11 years of a death sentence.I photographed Ron at a baseball fieldbecause he had been drafted to the Oakland A'sto play professional baseball just before his conviction.And the state's key witness in Ron's casewas, in the end, the actual perpetrator.

15:41
Ronald Jones served eight years of a death sentencefor rape and murder of a 28-year-old woman.I photographed him at the scene of arrest in Chicago.

15:52
William Gregory was convicted of rape and burglary.He served seven years of a 70 year sentence in Kentucky.

16:01
Timothy Durham, who I photographed at his alibi locationwhere 11 witnesses placed him at the time of the crime,was convicted of 3.5 yearsof a 3220 year sentence,for several charges of rape and robbery.He had been misidentified by an 11-year-old victim.

16:21
Troy Webb is photographed here at the scene of the crime in Virginia.He was convicted of rape, kidnapping and robbery,and served seven years of a 47 year sentence.Troy's picture was in a photo arraythat the victim tentatively had some draw toward,but said he looked too old.The police went and found a photograph of Troy Webbfrom four years earlier,which they entered into a photo array days later,and he was positively identified.

16:51
Now I'm going to leave you with a self portrait.And it reiterates that distortion is a constant,and our eyes are easily deceived.That's it. Thank you.(Applause)